Projecting the Auburn quarterback depth chart

The summer offseason is in full swing, and Auburn Live is trying to survive it with our Position Week breakdowns. By the time all eight units (QB, RB, OL, WR, DT, Edge, LB, DBs) at Auburn have been covered, media days will have passed, training camp will have arrived, and the return of football inside Jordan-Hare Stadium will be just around the corner. We’re rolling out our positional weeks with the fifth group up: the Auburn quarterbacks.

AUBURN — The last two years have been a wild ride at the quarterback position for Auburn football.

Bo Nix acclimated to the Bryan Harsin/Mike Bobo offense in 2021, but when Bobo left, so did Nix. He chose to further his career at Oregon and left the Tigers with a massive hole to fill at quarterback. TJ Finley, Robby Ashford and Holden Geriner tried to pick up the slack last season, but things didn’t go very smoothly.

Finley started the first three games in 2022, throwing for 143 yards per game, four picks and one touchdown. He was injured late in the game against Penn State and didn’t start for the remainder of the season, later leaving the team all together before transferring to Texas State in the offseason. Geriner started the Missouri game, but only completed two passes for eight yards. Ashford was the starter the rest of the way, completing 49 percent of his passes for 1,613 yards, throwing seven picks and seven touchdowns, while adding 709 rushing yards and seven touchdowns on the ground.

It all led to a 5-7 regular season record and just two conference wins. That brings us to the current situation. Head coach Hugh Freeze knew he needed more talent.

“The transfer portal opens soon and we’re open to any position that will help us improve our team, as long as they fit into our culture, and that includes the quarterback room,” Freeze said on April 8.

Freeze was obviously telling the truth, as numerous transfer quarterbacks were looked at before former Michigan State quarterback Payton Thorne entered the portal and signed with Auburn in the late stages of the spring transfer period. Thorne joins Ashford and Geriner, as well as true freshman Hank Brown as scholarship quarterbacks for 2023.

Thorne arrives at Auburn with 6,493 career yards, 49 touchdowns and 24 interceptions. He completed over 60 percent of his passes the last two seasons, and brings two years of eligibility with him to the Plains. Thorne spoke about his transfer, expectations at Auburn, approach to the quarterback position and much more in June, so if you missed that, make sure and check it out.

As for Ashford, Freeze really praised his desire to grow during the spring, calling him “coachable.” Freeze added, “I think Robby got better…he’s trying to change some of the things that have caused, at least for me, concern about being a quarterback leader, whether it’s body language, or ball security, or demeanor in general.”

And then there’s Geriner, who started to raise his level of play towards the end of spring camp. Freeze said, “I thought Holden Geriner, I thought he really stood out all week with his improvement and play. Not that the others didn’t improve also, but I thought his grasp of what we were trying to do, he was impressive last week.”

Auburn Live is continuing its fifth position week of the summer by projecting the starter and backups at the quarterback position.

Five questions around Auburn’s QB room

Projecting the Auburn WR depth chart

Projecting the Auburn OL depth chart

Projecting the Auburn TE depth chart

Projecting the Auburn RB depth chart

Projected starter

Thorne.

The two-year starter from Michigan State wasn’t recruited to Auburn to simply compete for the starting position. At the same time, Thorne didn’t leave a Power Five school where he’s spent the last four years, on his way to starting for a third-straight season, to start over with only the hope of starting. Thorne is the most experienced, most talented quarterback on the Auburn roster, and his family football ties run deep. His father, Jeff, has experience as a college offensive coordinator, and his grandfather was a successful high school coach. Thorne lives in the film room and comes from running a RPO offense during his prep days where he threw for over 12,000 yards and 120 touchdowns.

Thorne’s rushing stats are often misleading. With sacks involved, Thorne’s rushing numbers look pedestrian at best. The film says otherwise. Thorne has good ability to scramble and make plays with his feet at times, the athletic ability is there, and in the Tigers’ RPO offense, Thorne won’t simply be a statue standing back there. Recently, Georgia’s Stetson Bennett comes to mind. Bennett rushed for around 500 yards the last two seasons, athletic enough to make plays with his feet and escape trouble most of the time. Auburn would know, as Bennett ripped off a 64-yard touchdown run in Athens last season. Bennett was a sneaky-good athlete, and so is Thorne.

Thorne has the mindset, the skill set and the confidence to step into a new situation, earn his teammates trust and win the job. That’s the expectation and it would be a surprise to most, if not everyone, if Thorne wasn’t the starter against UMass on September 2.

Projected backups

Ashford, Geriner, Sawyer Pate and Brown.

Ashford and Geriner do hold one advantage over Thorne, as both participated in spring camp, learning the offense, building chemistry with teammates and developing their relationships with Freeze and Philip Montgomery. Is that enough to give the duo a real chance to compete with and beat out Thorne for the starting position? Many of Freeze’s comments during spring camp would say no.

Freeze was transparent and clear about the play of the quarterbacks during spring camp. Freeze said their play was inconsistent at best, even saying at one point, he wished they were “further along.” Freeze did praise Ashford for the improvements he’s made as a leader, and praised Geriner for raising his level of play, but clearly felt the need to target multiple transfer quarterback options even while spring camp was ongoing.

Ashford provides Freeze and Montgomery with fantastic athletic ability at the position, a true change-of-pace player. There will be opportunities for Ashford to play and contribute, but his role, along with Geriner, is projected to be in the backup capacity. As for Brown, a redshirt season seems to be in his future with three scholarship quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart entering August camp.

In the end, the projection is that entering the season, Thorne is QB1, Ashford is QB2, Geriner is QB3, with Pate as QB4, as Brown attempts to redshirt.

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